Heat

Synopsis

A Los Angeles Crime Saga

Obsessive master thief, Neil McCauley leads a top-notch crew on various daring heists throughout Los Angeles while determined detective, Vincent Hanna pursues him without rest. Each man recognizes and respects the ability and the dedication of the other even though they are aware their cat-and-mouse game may end in violence.

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"Three hours was the wrong running time for this movie," began my negative "review" 18 years ago, just a few months after I launched my site. "It should have run either 90 minutes, or seven hours." That I somehow failed to appreciate the rampant awesomeness on display here boggles the mind; for all his idiocy, though, younger me did have a point, if not yet an available countermodel. Today, Heat looks like a hugely condensed season of first-rate television, with the sprawling narrative and multi-character arcs we now associate with that medium. (See also: Contagion.) Bump it up to 10 or 12 hours on HBO and the material that currently feels thin—Kilmer and Judd's rocky marriage, Portman's depression, Fichtner's…

A cinema of gestures, large and small, elongated and fleeting, carried through the whispering winds of an epic. Just observe the way Neil moves over near Eady after introducing himself, or how Charlene signals Chris about the sting by swiping her hand against the sharp metallic railing. Watch as Hanna picks up his dying stepdaughter with the utmost fragility, innocence lost and drowned by blood. See Neil's gentle plea towards Eady as she runs away from LA's shimmering atmosphere, the modern smog and neon colliding amongst the cosmos, his plan lost without her presence, her eyes, her beauty. Stare - mouth agape - as a police squad and a gang of bank robbers wage war on the asphalt, wounded…

got to see this on a stunning 35mm print at TIFF with michael mann present. 20 years later and it's just as alive and mesmerizing as ever.

apparently it was the first time mann had actually sat through the film in many years but he expressed his undying affection for the ending/final shot, which he described as the most human moment taking place in a space "not built for humans." dude is a fucking cinematic poet.

Two professionals seat across from each other at a coffee place. They bond over their personal problems. Vincent talking about his marriage failures due to work and his stepdaughter. Neil talks about his alone life and not getting attached to someone you are not willing to walk out in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.

Who are they? One is a cop and other criminal. They chase each other like a cat chases a rat. They both are committed to their work and they are best at what they do. They finish their conversation by reaffirming their commitment to their work and to using lethal force if necessary to stop the other.

If Al Pacino wasn't so great in this I probably wouldn't have enjoyed this movie. I was transfixed by his performance. And the shootout in the street is fantastic, especially because of the sound in that scene.

As people, we all become obsessed with certain things. Whether it be hobbies, passions, pastimes, we can all lose ourselves to what we find the most interesting. Michael Mann’s cinema seems to be the epitome of obsessions portrayed in cinema. Many of his films seem to have some of the same beats, and even if it isn’t broken you don’t need to fix it, I can’t help but notice these repeated beats - these obsessions.

THE JERICHO MILE (1979) Mann’s cinematic exploration begins with The Jericho Mile, which is an interesting though quite stylistically flat film about a man in prison, who runs around the prison track constantly. An upsetting film…

It's funny - my perception of Heat before I watched it was as the ur-heist movie. In reality, it's a crime epic that merely has to do with heists, and it's pretty great. Long, but not indulgent - at almost three hours, every scene has purpose, which makes it easy to get invested early and see it through to the end.

DeNiro and Pacino are both giving unhinged performances but in noticeably different ways - DeNiro's calmness hides so much anger, while Pacino is tweaked out and extra the whole way through. They work very nicely as the heart of this film, and you immediately get why these characters are so damn crime-horny for each other. The action scenes are…

I finally watched Heat and from this point on I fear most other serious heist films will feel, well, a little silly or underwhelming when considering what this Mann film brings to the table. Is there anything not excellent about this?

I mean, every character has a place in this film and resonates individuality and personality. Every moment reverberates with the tension of coming conflict and the meeting of two unstoppable forces. The gunfight . . . okay, everybody has talked about it already so I think I can leave that one alone. The ending, well, I don't even want to potentially spoil how perfect, if not exceedingly foreshadowed, it is --a thematic statement burned with fire and tragedy onto…